Interview: Jimmy Cauty

From now until May 8 Trinity hosts a “surreal model village experience” – a miniaturised post-riot urban landscape, created by former KLF and The Orb founder Jimmy Cauty.

Created in 1:87 scale and contained within a 40ft shipping container, Cauty’s The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) was previously seen at Banksy’s Dismaland last summer, and now visits Bristol as part of a nationwide tour of the sites of historic riots. For its Bristol sojourn, the ADP takes up residence opposite the Trinity Road Police Station, which played a prominent role in the St Pauls riot of 1980.
Here’s Jimmy to tell us more.

This must have been a complex and painstaking creation. Tell us how it came together.
The ADP has been evolving over a three-year period, most recently in a derelict railway arch in London. Many people have been involved in the construction – both volunteers and experts like Darren Holdstock, who came to a show of mine called A Riot in a Jam Jar.
Darren pointed out that the police car strobe lights in a group of four police cars inside a jam jar were flashing in unison, something real police cars do not do. I’d probably noticed this but decided it didn’t matter: Darren persuaded me it did matter. He later spent three months wiring up all the lights on the ADP, including over 65 police cars, all of which flash at a slightly different frequency, never in unison. The effect is quite magical – and is a big part of the installation.

Are you skilled at working in miniature yourself, or did you draft in specialists?
I am skilled at working in miniature, but I sometimes draft in volunteers to do the repetitive work – like painting the police uniforms, or going to the hardware store 14 times a day.

Blown-up section of motorway, absconding prison kids, coppers hanging out at Burger King: what’s going on, exactly?
The Aftermath… is an observation of an unexpected outcome when the police take over a town following a riot, or other event. It’s not about the riot or civil disaster – it’s about what happens in the aftermath. The police appear to be dislocated from reality, standing around not knowing what to do next. All the people have gone – maybe they are all in custody, maybe they are hiding inside. That’s not important. Some of the police are resorting to low-level crime and vandalism as their world of law and order quickly breaks apart.

And how much does it resemble (a possible) reality? Is it just a step or two away, in your mind, from where we’re already at?
The ADP is based on events in a mythical town called Bedford – no relation to the real Bedford. It could be anywhere in the UK.

What did you make of Dismaland?
I had a problem with big spiders and other unknown insects and animals living in the model village at Dismaland. They set up home in some of the buildings and set about building webs from pylon to pylon. We had to call in pest control to fumigate the whole room that housed the ADP. At one point we had to evacuate the room as a brave Dismaland operative threw a brick at a very large spider. Animal lovers will be unimpressed by this, but it was definitely evil.

What thoughts and feelings do you hope to provoke in visitors? Do you hope people reflect on civil unrest, policing behaviour, the fact we may be living in similarly disenchanted times to the 1980-81 riots era…?
I hope people will make up their own minds about what is going on. I am leaving it all open to interpretation.

The Aftermath Dislocation Principle is at Trinity until May 8. For more info, visit www.3ca.org.uk/whats-on/2016/jimmy-cauty-adp

See more pictures of the installation at b247.staging.proword.press/channel/culture/art/news/dismalands-model-village-to-visit-trinity-bristol